The arrival of second-gen netbooks with Intel's 'Pine Trail' Atom chips has seen the breed come of age. Not only can the latest 10in machines from Samsung, Dell and Acer run for up to eight hours on a full charge, but the combination of Windows 7 Starter and the N450 processor has finally brought a decent lick of speed and an up …

COMMENTS

Dongles

Dont know why you picked the Zoom one when nearly all Dongles available in UK are made by Huawei and ZTE, and when most of those are more or less given away on a data tarriff. Three has its coverage issues sometimes but their deals are pretty good.

BTW, most recent linux distros work very well with 3G Dongles and Huawei at least, work 'out of the box': just plug it in and wait for the config wizard. After that, it's just like selecting any other wireless network

Might be old hat ...

But they work. And they last forever, good engineering it would seem.

I have about three dozen of them, got 'em free[1] just over two decades ago. I carry one in my pocket, there is one in the glove box of all the road-going vehicles and under the seat of the motorcycles, in each of the laptop cases, etc. I recharge the battery in the one in my pocket about every two months, and need to replace the bulb every couple years.

[1] CamelLites[tm] promo ... Free Mini-Mag bundled with three (two?) packs of smokes. I quit smoking right after the promo was over ... Cause & effect? Probably not ;-)

DVD on netbook

Working in a major retailer during what shall henceforth be known as "the rise of the netbook", I thought I should point out something we noticed. Connecting an external DVD drive, while fine for data use, was not so useful for DVD viewing. In practice, the reduced spec of the unit itself resulted in either no playback at all, just the audio to play back, or just the video.

That was on the Windows XP netbooks. Mine (one of the old AOA-150 Linux machines) can run youtube video and the like perfectly, something the XP ones could not, but I have never tried to watch a DVD on it (that's what the mammoth desktop is for!), so the Linux unit may perform better.

I suggest...

...you should either stop believing your own (the companies?) sales twaddle or stick to the white goods section. I've never known any XP based Netbook to not play DVDs once DVD playback software (or more specifically, the DVD codecs) have been installed. Guess what, XP Netbooks will even do 1080p video too! And ANY productivity software you care to choose (albeit, in some cases, a little bit slower than a full-fat laptop). Not that the staff in a local major retailer will tell you that while simultaneously shuffling poor sods to the larger, higher priced (greater margin?) machines that they didn't really want further along the display.

Well actually...

That was my own and one of my fellow (equally technical) employees view after much testing on both customer returns (they were not happy that the two did not work together) and the brand-new units (to confirm). As a disclaimer I feel I should point out I am no longer working in retail and am in my own field (software engineering), and therefore no longer (not that I ever was personally - come to me and you got honest advice) biased towards selling better products.

If you noticed, there were a range of problems I mentioned, and of course we had firstly replaced the playback software and codecs.

How about a Linux 3G dongle?

Nice line-up and there are a couple of things there I may buy now I have been alerted to their existence.

However, would it have killed you to include details of a USB modem that did run out of the box on Ubuntu? A little note in the review of the 3G dongle would suffice and would be a great help to those of us who like the idea of 3G but don't want to purchase a device only to find it doesn't work.

A car mount? If you were that desperate for 10 items...

I'm sorry to say my choice of mobile mouse is wired - the 'Genius Navigator 365'. Excellent laser tracking on shiny things or even the not-so shiny side of your jeans if you're short of flat surfaces. However, it's ultimate trick (that makes it worth the cable) is the clamshell gamepad hidden inside.

Does anyone make a generic docking station lap "table"...

I found a fan / hub / card unit at Maplin. I suppose the problem with adding a drive is powering it, or alternatively incorporating a power supply to drive the notebook.

My Samsung Q1's own fan died; I assume that using an extra external fan will reduce dependency on and increase lifetime of your netbook's built-in fan, and it's easier and cheaper to replace. Currently I can run the Q1 with an external fan, otherwise it overheats in about 15-20 minutes.

Logitech Lapdesk too big, at 37 x 26mm, to stow in a case?

GPS and TV

I have an EeePC 900 and use a Globalsat BU-353 USB GPS and a Gigabyte U7000 USB DVB-T tuner. Both work well with Ubuntu. I use Me-TV for TV viewing and Navit with Openstreetmap for the GPS. Navit takes a bit of reading to set up and download the maps. I also have a Huewei E169 HSDPA USB modem that is plug and play with my provider here in Australia.

The uses for a netbook are only limited by the imagination, but IMHO what they are not good at is being small cheap notebooks - there are plenty of "real" cheap notebooks for that.

£16 for a Bluetooth dongle??

You must be mad. This one from DealExtreme costs £5.50, is the same size and works perfectly out of the box with Ubuntu on my Aspire One, connecting to my Dell mouse and Nokia phone (at the same time):

Windscreen smash

GPS tip

If anybodys looking at adding GPS, have a think back about whether you bought a bluetooth GPS receiver for a ye-olde smartphone prior to GPS being built in. I have one of the Holux GPSlim models.

If ever I want to add GPS to a PC, provided it has Bluetooth, I just pair that up, and it should show up as an RS232 style serial link, as COM#, probably COM4 or nearabouts. To see whether it works, connect into it with HyperTerminal (I know its gone now in Windows 7) and you should see a stream of incoming NMEA strings.

Any GPS software, including some freebies (Google Earth I think?) should work with it.

No need for a USB GPS dongle, it saves the need to drape a USB cable over to the receiver on your dash. You might even be able to pick up a secondhand BT GPS receiver cheap off Ebay, cheaper than a USB model.

I don't get it

Best accessory I ever bought...

The best accessory I ever bought is a U2o external battery pack - it will power my Acer Aspire One for several decades (OK, about 5 hours), has a 5V USB output just in case your mobile phone, Nintendo DS, PSP or other gadget needs some juice PLUS because it's a generic battery and the output voltage is adjustable it can be used with other DC-powered devices too - it sure beats buying a spare laptop battery that will only fit one thing.

USB ports and packing all this stuff up

Okay: $400 Netbook, $500+ of "Essential" netbook accessories. Then you suggest a case that doesn't even have space for all the accessories as being "Essential.".

I get the size factor of the netbook, but if you have to make all the additional purchases listed here, why not just buy a decent laptop for $900 and I'm sure they'll throw in a free case. If I had the time to break-down and pack the 9 "essential items (and a USB hub) in this review into a case to go on the road, I'd go insane.

Great product reviews and plugs for the various companies, though. But nothing on this list is "Essential."